CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL IDENTITY: OUT-GROUP MOVEMENT OF IMMIGRANT DONE BY GOGOL'S FAMILY IN JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE NAMESAKE.

CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL IDENTITY: OUT-GROUP MOVEMENT OF
IMMIGRANT DONE BY GOGOL’S FAMILY IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S
THE NAMESAKE

THESIS
Submitted as partial fulfillment of the Requirements for Sarjana Degree of
English Department of Art and Humanities Faculty UIN Sunan Ampel
Surabaya

By:
Ma’rifatul Ilmi
Reg. Number A73213111

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY ARTS AND HUMANITIES
THE STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF SUNAN AMPEL
SURABAYA
2017

CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL IDENTITY: OUT-GROUP MOVEMENT OF
IMMIGRANT DONE BY GOGOL’S FAMILY IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S

THE NAMESAKE

THESIS
Submitted as partial fulfillment of the Requirements for Sarjana Degree of
English Department of Art and Humanities Faculty UIN Sunan Ampel
Surabaya

Supervised by:
Dr. A. Dzo’ul Milal, M.Pd
NIP: 196005152000031002

By:
Ma’rifatul Ilmi
Reg. Number A73213111

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY ARTS AND HUMANITIES
THE STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF SUNAN AMPEL
SURABAYA
2017

ABSTRACT
Ilmi, M. 2017. Constructing Social Identity: Out-Group Movement of Immigrant
Done by Gogol’s Family in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. English
Department, Faculty of Art and Humanities. The State Islamic University of
Sunan Ampel Surabaya
The advisor: Dzoul Milal, M.Pd
Keywords: interaction, immigrant, social categorization, social comparison,
social identification, social identity construction.
Social identity is one of important things in life. It is because other people
will see us from our social identity, at first. Social identity usually refers to
someone’s nationality. Social identity can be construction through three concepts,
including: categorization, social comparison and social identification. The aim of
this study is to examine Gogol’s family social identity construction. Therefore, the
concepts of their social identity construction are being explored. Further, this
study also explores the effects of their construction toward their environment.In
conducting the study, the writer applies Discourse Analysis to analyze Gogol’s
family’s utterances and sentences related to their construction described in The
Namesake novel. Content analysis approach is used to infer Gogol’s family’s
utterances and attitudes indicating the social identity construction. The study only

uses human instrument. The writer is the main instrument to collect the data. The
data are collected through reading the novel and selecting Gogol’s family’s
utterances and attitudes. Meanwhile, the collected data are analyzed by
identifying, classifying, describing and concluding.The findings of this study
reveal that Gogol’s family applies three ways of social identity construction, they
are: social categorization, social comparison and social identification. From the
data found, the writer concludes that Gogol’s family, father and mother, stand to
keep their social identity as Indian. Meanwhile, Gogol himself and his little sister
choose to change their social identity as Indian-American. Further, the effects
show positive effect for them. Their relation with the surroundings are good even
though they are not identified in the same social identity.

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INTISARI
Ilmi, M. 2017. Constructing Social Identity: Out-Group Movement of Immigrant
Done by Gogol’s Family in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. Sastra Inggris,
Fakultas Adab dan Humaniora. Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Ampel
Surabaya.

The advisor: Dzoul Milal, M.Pd
Keywords: Interaksi, imigran, category sosial, perbandingan sosial, identifikasi
sosial, , pembentukan identitas sosial.
Identitas sosial meruakan salah satu hal enting didalam kehidupan. Hal ini
karena orang lain akan memandang dan menilai kita, pertama kali, dari identitas
sosial kita. Biasanya, identitas sosial meruju ada nasionalitas seseorang.
Pembentukan identitas sosial dilakukan melalui penggategorian sosial,
perbandingan sosial serta engidentifikasian sosial. Tujuan dari enelitian ini ialah
untuk meneliti pembentukan identitas sosial yang dilakukan oleh keluarga Gogol.
Oleh karena itu, enelitian ini meneliti konsep ppembentukan identitas sosial yang
dilakukan oleh keluarga Gogol. Selain itu, penelitian ini juga meneliti akibat dari
pembentukan identitas tersebut terhada lingungan mereka. Didalam melaksanakan
penelitian ini, penulis mengaplikasikan Analisis Wacana untuk menganalisa
perkataan dan kalimat yang menggambarkan sikap yang berkaitan dengan
pembentukan identitas sosial mereka yang ada didalam novel The Namesake.
Analisis Isi digunakan untuk menyimpulkan maksud dari perkataan dan tindakan
keluarga Gogol yang berhubungan dengan pembentuan identitas sosial. Penelitian
ini hanya menggunakan instrument manusia. penulis menjadi instrument utama
dalam pengkoleksian data. Data tersebut dikoleksi melalui membaca novel dan
memilih perkataan dan tindakan keluarga Gogol. Sedangkan analisa data

dilakukan dengan identifikasi, klasifikasi, dekripsi dan penyimpulan. Dilihat dari
hasil Penelitian, keluarga Gogol mengalikasikan tiga cara untk membentuk
identitas sosial merek, yakni: kategori sosial, perbandingan sosial dan identifikasi
sosial. Dari data tersebut, penulis menyimulakan bahwa keluarga Gogol, terutama
ayah dan bunya, berusaha menjaga nasionalitas mereka sebagai pribumi India.
Sementara Gogol dan adik perempuannya mengidentifikasi identitas sosial
mereka sebagai India-Amerika. Kemudian, akibat dari pembentukan identitas
sosial yang mereka lakukan berakibat posotif. Hubungan mereka dengan
lingungan mereka sangat baik meskiun mereka identitas sosial mereka jauh
berbeda.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Inside Cover Page ............................................................................................ i
Inside Title Page ............................................................................................... ii
Declaration Page .............................................................................................. iii
Motto ................................................................................................................ iv
Dedication Page ............................................................................................... v

Thesis Advisor’s Approval Page ...................................................................... vi
Thesis Examiners’ Approval Page ................................................................... viii
Acknowledgement............................................................................................ viii
Table of Contents ............................................................................................. ix
List of Appendices ........................................................................................... xii
List of Figures .................................................................................................. xiii
List of Tables.................................................................................................... xiv
Abstract ............................................................................................................ xiv
Intisari .............................................................................................................. xv
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the Study ......................................................................... 1
1.2. Research Problems ................................................................................... 5
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1.3. Objective of Study ................................................................................... 6
1.4. Significance of Study ............................................................................... 6
1.5. Scope and Limitation ............................................................................... 7
1.6. Definition of Key Terms .......................................................................... 7
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Social Identification .................................................................................. 10
2.2 Identity and Social Identity ....................................................................... 13
2.3 The Analysis Framework of Social Identity ............................................. 19
2.3.1 Social Categorization ...................................................................... 20
2.3.2 Social Comparison .......................................................................... 21
2.3.3 Social identification ........................................................................ 22
2.4 The Theoretical Framework of Interpretation ........................................... 22
2.5 Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake ............................................................... 24
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Research Design ........................................................................................ 25
3.2 Data Collection ......................................................................................... 26
3.2.1

Data and Data Source .................................................................... 26

3.2.2

Instruments .................................................................................... 26

3.2.3

Techniques of Data Collection ...................................................... 27

3.3 Data Analysis ............................................................................................ 28
CHAPTER IV FINDING AND DISCUSSION

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4.1 Findings ..................................................................................................... 34
4.1.1

The Process of Social Identity Construction ....................................... 36

4.1.1.1 Social Categorization .................................................................... 37
4.1.1.1.1

Culture ............................................................................... 37

4.1.1.1.2

Tradition ............................................................................ 42

4.1.1.1.3

Behavior ............................................................................ 45

4.1.1.1.4

Language ........................................................................... 47

4.1.1.2 Social Comparison ........................................................................ 49
4.1.1.2.1

Culture ............................................................................... 49

4.1.1.2.2

Tradition ............................................................................ 51

4.1.1.2.3

Habit and Behavior ............................................................ 54

4.1.1.3 Social Identification ...................................................................... 57
4.1.2

The Effects of Social Identity Construction ........................................ 59

4.2 Discussion ................................................................................................. 62
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1. Conclusion .......................................................................................... 66
5.2. Recommendation................................................................................. 67
REFERENCES
APPENDICES

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List of Appendices

1. Social Categorization showed by Gogol’s family
a. Culture
b. Tradition
c. Behavior
d. Language
2. Social Comparison showed By Gogol’s Family
a. Culture
b. Tradition
c. Habit and behavior
3. Social Identification showed by Gogol’s family
4. Effects of the Social Identity Construction
5. List of codes

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List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation ................................................... 24
Figure 3.1 The example of selecting data by highlighting ............................... 29
Figure 3.2 The example of selecting data by underlining ................................ 29
Figure 3.3 Social categorization coding ........................................................... 30
Figure 3.4 Social identification coding ............................................................ 30
Figure 3.5 Social comparison coding ............................................................... 30
Figure 3.6 Example of proving the effects ....................................................... 33

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List of Tables
Table 2.1 Percentage of postvocalic ‘r’............................................................ 17
Table 3.1 Example of data classification table................................................. 31
Table 3.2 List of codes ..................................................................................... 32

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter covers the fundamental ideas of exploring the way of
immigrants’ people in constructing their social identity which is
represented by the characters of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. It
consists of background of study, research problems, objective of study,
significance of study, scope and limitation and definition of key terms.
1.1 Background of Study
Since it was firstly proposed by Tajfel (1978), the term of social
identity is used as investigation approach of many scholars’ research
(Capozza, 2000: vii). By the time goes on, people will consider identity as
a significant aspect in their life because other people view another from the
way they talk and behave (Jenkins, 2008:1). Additionally, Ochs
(1993:289) implied whether people will use verbal acts to construct their
personal and social identity to show other people to which group they
belong to. So far, a series of research have already been done to examine
the concept of social identity construction in various focuses, such as:
lesbian (Kitzinger, 1995), social media (Young, 2013), leadership (Hogg,
2001; Sinha, 2010), nationalism (Ross, 2012), ethnic violence (Fearon and
Laitin, 2000), mimetic isomorphism (Mizruchi and Fein, 1999),
entertainment (Trepte, 2006) and storytelling (Archakis and Tzanne,
2009). In almost all researches, social identity is used to analyze and

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investigate group of people. Unfortunately, previous researchers used the
concept of social identity to investigate only native people of a certain
area. Unlike the previous researches mentioned, this present study is
presented to fill the gap by investigating the way of immigrant people
construct their social identity, which is reflected in a literary work. Further,
it will also observe the effects of the immigrant people’s ways toward their
relationship with other people around them.
However, Ochs’s investigation (1993) leads the core of my idea
to conduct a research about immigrant people’s struggle to construct the
identity. He, ever once, investigated immigrant people that were described
in essays published in The New York Time magazine. Nevertheless, Ochs
did not explore detailed concept of immigrant to construct the social
identity. He instead only explored general perspective about the relation of
language acquisition and social identity related to immigrant people.
Hence, my self-motivation to conduct this study is to follow Ochs’s
suggestion (1993:302) which is not taken yet by any scholars during this
time. He suggested further research to explore more on (1) ways of
immigrant people to construct and show the identity to the native people,
and (2) how their ways of constructing social identity affect their
relationship with their neighborhood or other people around their life.
In fact, the study of identities becomes an interesting field to be
investigated, in the last few decades (Edwards, 2009:15). Yet, there is still
limited research that takes literary work as the object of social identity

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construction. However, Fatmawati (2015), an Indonesian researcher,
conducted a study which took literary work as her data source of
investigating personal identity. She analyzed the personal identity of
Mikhail, a character in translated novel The Zahir by Paulo Ceolho, which
focused on only his label and stance. Following Fatmawati, this present
study will also take literary work as the data source but it will focus on the
social identity construction instead of personal identity construction.
Again, this present study is showing a complement prospect concerning
the study of social identity construction. Hence, this present study is aimed
to complete any gap that exists in the study of constructing social identity,
nowadays.
As the tittle suggests, this study will wholly analyze outmovement of immigrants to construct their identity. People will usually
establish social movement by promoting their culture and changing other
people’s point of view toward themselves (Meyer, 2002:20). In addition,
Ross (2012:100) seems to clarify and strengthen Mayer’s statement that
national identity focuses on cultural factors because culture is the actual
way to show someone’s social identity. Social identity theory focuses on
intergroup behavior in case of social categories, include: intergroup social
comparison, positive distinctiveness, stereotypes, discrimination, and
intergroup relation (Hogg, 2001:188). In fact, the social identity
construction theory has been dominated in the field of intergroup issues or
conflicts (Capozza, 2000: vii). Many of intergroup conflicts focus on the

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way of people to construct their self-prejudice and interpersonal
interaction (Tajfel and Turner, 1979:33). In other words, intergroup has
become the most leading topic to be discussed in the study of social
identity construction. Overall, this present study will apply Tajfel and
Turner’s concepts of constructing social identity. They suggested three
processes of constructing social identity, including: social categorization,
social identification and social comparison (Tajfel and Turner, 1979:3840).
The focus of the study was Gogol’s family in Jhuma Lahiri’s The
Namesake. Gogol’s family, in the story, is described as immigrant who
struggle to be granted among the native people of America. Gogol himself
tries to construct his social identity as an Indian. In recent years, some
researchers and scholars take Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake to be the
focus of investigation in case of literature aspect, culture, identity and
immigrant itself. Mangayarkarasi (2004) analyzed The Namesake novel in
case of identity loss and cultural alienation. Besides, Paskarina (2008), an
undergraduate student of Universitas Kristen Maranatha Bandung took this
novel as her undergraduate thesis research. She focused on comparing the
immigrant portrayal in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The namesake and Mukherjee’s
Jasmine. In her research, she only analyzed the character of Ashima,
Gogol’s

mother.

Furthermore,

Prof.

Doody

(2010)

analyzed

postmodernism aspect, post colonialism aspect and identity within the
story. Then, it was continued by Assadnassab (2012), a master degree

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student of Dalarna University who investigated this novel as his thesis
which focused on the cultural identity aspect especially in term of
displacement and freedom. In the following year, Sharma (2013) analyzed
the identity crisis described in the novel. Then, Bran (2014) seemed to
conduct investigation toward the novel in a different case. She analyzed
the case of the author’s point of view in representing her own life as an
immigrant through the novel. Similar to the previous researches, this
present study will also analyze the novel in case of immigrant and identity.
Yet, it will no longer discuss the identity crisis or immigrant portrayal. It
instead will focus on analyzing the ways of immigrant to construct the
social identity and the effect toward the environment relationship.
From the explanation above, the finding of my study that explores
the immigrant people’s ways and its effect toward other people, will be
considered as the complement of previous researches related to social
identity theory. Hence, this study is important to conduct in order to widen
the knowledge and information in case of social interaction. Thus, the
writer hopes that this research will be useful for the readers so that they
can understand how to interact with people outside the group based on
who they are – their own culture, behavior and language.
1.2 Research Problems
The research problems are formulated as the following questions,
namely:
1. What ways does Gogol’s family use to construct their social identity?

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2. How do the ways of Gogol’s family constructing social identity affect
their relationship with other people?
1.3 Objectives of Study
This study is presented to reach the following goals, they are:
1. To explore immigrant people’s ways to construct the social identity
which is reflected by Gogol’s family in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The
Namesake.
2. To explore any possible effects that occurs due to the ways of
constructing the social identity toward relationship with surroundings
people.
1.4 Significance of Study
This present study is made to give both theoretical and practical
significances. Theoretically, this study is hoped to provide more and new
information for language learners to improve their understanding about
applied linguistics, especially in sociolinguistics which focus on social
interaction, culture and social identity. Further, this study is practically
hoped to give direction to language learners to conduct more specific and
detail research about the field for the next study. Hence, this study is
intended to fill the gap of previous researches so that they will have better
enlightenment concerning the concept of social identity construction in
social interaction.

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1.5 Scope and Limitation
This research is conducted to identify the ways of immigrant to
construct the identity related to which group they belong to. Social identity
construction has close relation to human behavior and interaction (Tajfel
and Turner, 1979:15). Hence, this study will only limit the discussion in
term of how immigrants construct their social identity while interacting
and of how their ways affect their interaction and relation with other
people. Further, this study will only include three processes suggested by
Tajfel and Turner (1979), those are: social categorization, social
identification and social comparison. Unfortunately, the object taken will
be in the form of writing which is assessed to provide less data in term of
expression, real action and behavior visually. Yet, it may not be a big
matter because the description of the story, either monologue or dialogues,
will really help the researcher to infer the data.
1.6 Definition of Key Terms
a. Interaction
Generally, interaction is sharing and exchanging information
among people (Bull, 2008:232)
b. Social identity
Social identity is self-evaluative and self-knowledge concerning to
which group of people they belong to (Hogg, 2001: 186).

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c. Social categorization
This is the first concept of Tajfel in constructing social identity.
This concept means that people will categorize, classify themselves
into groups based on the behavior (Tajfel and Turner, 1979:38).
d. Social comparison
After categorization, comparison of one other will definitely
happen. This comparison happens because people search for good
group so that they will have better life (Tajfel and Turner,
1979:40).
e. Social identification
The last concept refers to people’s decision in case of
identification, whether they keep on their group or move to another
group (Tajfel and Turner, 1979:40).
f. Immigrant
Immigrant is people who move and live outside their homeland
(Ochs, 1993:2)
g. The Namesake
It is a literary work written by Jhumpa Lahiri published in 2003. It
tells about Indian family who live in America whose son is
struggling to establish his identity as an Indian immigrant.

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h. Gogol’s family
Gogol’s family is the immigrant characters in the novel. It is told
that they keep their culture even though they have been many years
living in USA.

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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter reviews some related theories and related studies that
support the study.
2.1 Social Interaction
Interaction is a common term discussed by people, generally. It has
close relation with the social and environment because people will definitely
have interaction one other, daily. Therefore, social interaction is the most
basic unit in sociology. Social interaction refers to actions in which the doers
intend to know the peers’ identity and references (Scheinkman, 2005:1).
Further, social interaction also deals with social relationship, including:
intergroup and individuals. During the interaction, people will usually show
who they really are from their behavior, customs, and the way they speak.
Edward T Hall (1983) divides the rules of social interaction into three
kinds, are: dimension of time, place and situation. In the dimension of place,
Hall mentions that there are four major kinds of limitations, including:
intimate, personal, social and public. That limitation will manage how the
interaction should be, exactly. In term of intimate limitation, it means that
people should consider how close their relation is, so that the topic of
interaction will not go too far. Similar to the previous limitation, personal
limitation also deals with how well we manage ourselves not to speak about
what should not be spoken. Thus, misunderstanding will be avoided among

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them. Meanwhile, public and social limitations mean that the interaction is
only limited to general information of the doers of interaction (Edward,
1983:1).
There are five types of social interactions whose functions are to
stabilize the social structure and to promote the change, those are: exchange,
competition, conflict, cooperation and accommodation (Johnston, 1984:80).
Exchange happens almost in everyday interaction. It means that the doers of
interaction are exchanging information’s one other for example: dating,
friendship, family life and many others. This type of interaction usually
occurs when an individual has self-interest to know more about other people.
Then, competition happens when two or more people or groups oppose each
other about each perspective toward certain cases. Some sociologists argue
that this type of interaction is positive because it motivates people to perform
society’s needed roles. Meanwhile, the others view this as negative because it
may cause psychological stress, lack of cooperation in social relationship,
inequality and even conflicts.
Further, another form of interaction is conflict (Johnston, 1984:80). It
is the deliberate attempt to control by force, oppose, harm or resist the will of
another person. Johnston also restated in his book about Georg Simmel’s
(1908) identification on four sources of conflicts, are: wars, conflict within
groups, legal disputes, and clashes over ideology such as religion and politics.
Competition and conflict has close relation because conflicts sometimes
begin as competition. Other types is cooperation which occur when two or

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more people or groups work together to achieve goals that benefit many
people. Cooperation may be very significant in case of social interaction
because none, even groups, can complete achieving the goals without
cooperation. The last type of social interaction is accommodation. It is a state
of balance between cooperation and conflicts. In other words, we
accommodate each other in our interaction. Simply saying that we give a little
and we take a little. Accommodation has four kinds of forms, are:
compromise, truce, and arbitration. Compromise occurs when both parties
give up something to come to a mutual agreement – mediated decision to
avoid conflict. Another form is the truce. It is a halt for the conflict of two
parties when the compromise is not reached yet – mediation or third parties.
The other form is arbitration. In this case, arbitration is when the third party
makes decision that is binding both conflicted parties.
According to Professor Edward, there are two process of identifying
other people by interaction: by its effect and its origin (1905:26). In the case
of identifying by its effects, people will see from the peers views and
explanation to identify who they are and where they come from. Still,
identifying the process of interaction by its effect may not totally valid.
Hence, other method of identifying people during interaction is also
considered to validate the result. In that case, identifying by its origin may be
needed. Unlike the other method, by its effect, this method of identifying
include the expression, language, intonation, and everything related to the
way they behave during the interaction, naturally.

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Since interaction has closed relation to society and social
environment, it will, indirectly, also relate with language and its usage.
Kempson, at al (2016), describes language as mechanisms for interaction.
They state that the concept of language reflects the processes of actioncoordination. Language use is full of subsentential shifts of context in which
phenomena can be illustrated properly in conversation. Thus, speakers will
consider the relation between situation context and language so that they can
convey their willing based on the context. In sociolinguistics, it is explained
that there are ways to reflect language in term of its context of usage, include
cross-cultural communication (Holmes, 1992:285). Hence, this present study
will discuss detail on interaction and cross-cultural communication which
then indicates the speakers’ social identity. In term of social identity,
interaction may be one of significant things because it is possible that people
will exchange and share information one other about each of them. Briefly,
interaction means the way of people to get know one other.
2.2 Identity and Social Identity
John Edward (2008), in his book, re-explains Groebner’s statement
about identity (2004) that identity refers to individual subjective sense toward
themselves, other people include membership and classification (Edward,
2008:16). According to Jenkins (2004) identity can be identified from what
people tell about, include: culture, history, philosophy, etc. Fatmawati (2015),
in her thesis, retrieved Clarke’s (2008) explanation about three categories of
identity, those are: personal identity, social identity and ego identity. In fact,

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unlike Fatmawati, Edward (2009) only explains two categories of identity,
personal and social identity. According to him, personal identity is the brief
description of individual traits, characteristics and dispositions. In fact,
identity is not only about viewing human psychologically. Hence, the term of
social identity is also significant to identify someone’s identity. Social
identity refers to individual membership, to what group she/he belongs to,
what nationality they are and so on.
According to Burke (1998) who restated Hogg and Abrams (1988)
definition about social identity implied whether social identity is all about
people knowledge about other people’s category or group. Further, social
group is a set of people who hold common view about themselves that they
are the members of the same categories. Social identity is also about
interacting one to another, either in-group or out-group. Indeed, social
identity means individual’s characteristics and categorization of which group
they belong to, exactly.
Howard (2000), in his journal about social psychology of identities,
explained that social identity has several dimensions. First is ethnic identity.
In this case, people usually get confused to develop their identities because
they are dealing with the term of majority, minority, negative societal
stereotypes and discrimination. The next identity is sexual identity. Sexual
identity differs from racial identity in that awareness of one’s self as a sexual
being, and especially awareness of one’s possible deviation from sexual
norms, typically occurs later in one’s life than awareness of one’s race or

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ethnicity. Other dimension of social identity is gender identity. This
dimension is commonly discussed by social scholar in term of social identity.
Gender identities, in the sense of organizing a self sense around the
perception of female or male, and internalizing pre- and proscriptions of
behaviors deemed culturally appropriate to these self-perceptions, are thought
to be learned through early socialization, to be enacted and to be reinforced
throughout the life span.
Class identity is another dimension of social identity. For some
people’s point of view, class identity influences the interaction with other
identities (age, gender and so on). This identity is based on the social status of
individuals. Then, identity of (dis)ability, the next dimension of social
identity, is dealing with those who own illness and struggle on their existence.
It also relates how people adapt to the environment of “normal” people. The
last dimension is that age identity. Since age is one unique thing in social
identity, Gatz and Cotton (1994) implies that the identity dynamics of aging,
he

stated

that

Age

identities

are

both

ascribed

and

achieved; the boundaries of group membership are permeable, but defined
developmentally; and an influx of new members into the aged category is
certain, with numbers increasing much more rapidly than those of other
minority groups with permeable boundaries. It is because the definition of age
is flexible, both culturally and personality. Briefly, social identity is a
complex topic to be discussed because it tries to figure out and explore people
preferences, in any cases.

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Edwards (2009) described the relation among identity, language,
dialect, religion, gender and nationalism. Related to language-identity
linkage, he cited Sapir’s (1921) definition about language that language is
humans’ way to convey and illustrate their ideas, emotions and desires. It was
then developed by Morris (1946) that language is the arrangement of arbitrary
symbols whose function is to make people understand the context of what
they are talking about exactly.
One way to approach the language-identity linkage is to consider the
pragmatic advantages that may ensue during the conversation. For example,
two or more people whose background is different will interact one other
focusing on the context of situation such self-introduction. In fact, there are
various kinds of language spoken in the world. However, the use of lingua
franca may be considered. Most people will use lingua franca in order to
understand each other and to have better communication. It is language which
is used for mediation, such English.
For example, Japanese and an Indonesian are having a conversation;
to make both parties understand each other they may use English as their
lingua franca. Yet, some have proven the continuation of language diversity
as evidence of human desire to create unique perspectives on reality and to
protect group distinctiveness. Simply, they would like to demonstrate the
identity by protecting their own culture and tradition.

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Furthermore, the relation between identity and dialect is closely
related to language-identity linkage. Generally, dialect if language variety that
differs from others along three dimensions: vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation (accent). Accent is the most influential thing toward identity
demonstration by considering people’s dialect. The obvious example can be
seen from below percentage of possible postvocalic ‘r’ pronunciation
described by Edwards (2009:68).

Status

New York

Reading

Upper-middle-class speakers

32

0

Lower-middle-class speakers

20

28

Upper-working-class speakers

12

44

Lower-working-class speakers

10

49

Table 2.1 Percentage of postvocalic ‘r’ pronunciation in New York
and Reading
In western world – French, England, America, etc. the way of people
to differ their social status is by pronunciation as illustrated in the table
above. Thus, dialect may also be a significant thing to demonstrate one’s
identity.
In addition, religion also deals with identity, still, in case of
demonstration. Similar to previous term, religion is also most important

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markers of identity especially in term of ethno national identity. Historically,
religion was the bedrock of identity which is then replaced by language.
During the Renaissance era, religion had been the upper hand to demonstrate
one’s identity. John Edwards (2009), in his book cited Safran’s (2008)
statement that nationalism is, in fact, religion itself. Logically, religion is
about faith or being faithful. Similar to nationalism, we, indigenous, should
also have faith to our nation. Hence, both self-identity and social identity can
be demonstrated by recognizing the individual religion – their beliefs.
The term of gender has different meaning from sex (Nobelius, 2004).
For sociologists, gender is sex distinction based on the cultural aspect
including environmental influences – behavior, tradition, etc. Meanwhile, sex
is male and female distinction based on their biological components. In fact,
in case of identity, the term of gender may be one of basic thing to recognize
an individual. It is because male and female have their own stereotypes that
become their characteristics. For example, female may be more polite than
male during interaction, in certain cases. Thus, gender and identity also have
close relation because the basic thing of demonstrating identity is by
understanding ones’ stereotypes.
Discussing about nationalism, Anna Triandafyllidou (2003) mentions
the double-edge of national identity, including: the real member of the
community and the foreigner inside the community. She also states that this
double-edged does not only characterize national identity but also any kind of
social identity which is constituted in social interaction. Thus, the term of

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nationalism is actually within identity especially social identity. Hence, its
relation is very significant and often debatable. It is because there are serious
cases related to nationalism such as: identity crisis, immigrants’ identity,
youth identity and so on.
2.3 The Analysis Framework of Social Identity
The term of social identity is described differently by some
researchers. Tajfel and Turner (1979:36) defined social identity as person’s
identity which relates to her/his community or group. Meanwhile, Ochs
(1993:288) explained social identity as the cover of person’s social belonging
which includes: social status, position roles and relationship among other
people. Then, Capozza 2000:1) stated that social identity is used to describe
some elements of constructing social status, such as: (a) the self-structure of
individuals as how they are being considered in a categorical membership, (b)
the character of intergroup relation – how certain people characterize
themselves in having social interaction with other people outside their group,
and (c) the relation of individuals to the broader social structure – how people
construct the identity without bothering their environmental relationship.
Furthermore, Jenkins (2008:103) explained that social identity is as
self-identification which involves powerful imaginary of people who own
significant inter-subjective so that they are able to interact and construct their
identity to other group very well. Then, Layder (2004:88) argued that
people’s personal identity is actually based on their social identity. It means,
in other words, social identity is the core of a person’s personal identity

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construction. In fact, Jetten (2006:98) implied whether social identity is the
process of individual awareness concerning their belonging in their group or
categorization.
In addition, Tajfel and Turner (1979) offer the concept of social
identity construction. There are three steps of processes to establish social
identity construction, they are: social categorization, social comparison and
social identification. Below is the detail explanation about those three
concepts.
2.3.1 Social Categorization
This concept is the stage where people try to categorize other in order
to understand and identify them. Social categorization includes race, position
and nationality. Tajfel explained that this concept is about how we behave
and evaluate other people in/out of our group. When we have already known
people’s categorization, we can then understand things about them.
Furthermore, we can also define appropriate behavior according to the groups
that people belong to.

Also, social categorization will refer to intergroup discrimination.
Indeed, when people are trying to categorize others, they will definitely
discriminate which is proper to them. In this case, the intergroup
discrimination includes both in-group members and out-group members. In
addition, the strategy used in this case is the strategy of fairness. This strategy
will lead people into group favoritism and discrimination as well. Overall,

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they will seem to compete with out-group members in term of suitable
behavior they are willing to do, in their point of view.
The word “categorization” is different from “categories”. We may
understand the word categories as interclass differences. Meanwhile,
categorization means we accentuate and differentiate members within the
same categories. Social categorization deals with individuals or groups
stereotypes. Hence, the function of social categorization,

2.3.2 Social Comparison
After people categorize themselves belonging to their group, they tend
to compare their own group with another group. They will favorably compare
their group in order to maintain their self-esteem. This then helps to explain
prejudice and discrimination because each members of the group will see that
the other are actually competing themselves.
According to Tajfel (1979), comparing groups will produce positive
and negative benefits. These benefits are depending on the people’s way of
comparing. Comparing groups in positively will too produce positive benefit
that is high prestige. Meanwhile, comparing groups negatively will result low
prestige. Then, from this comparison, three theoretical principle of social
comparison are produced, such as: (1) individuals strive to achieve or to
maintain positive social identity, (2) positive social identity is based on a
large extent on favorable comparisons, and (3) when social identity is
unsatisfactory, individuals will strive to leave the group and join others.

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2.3.3 Social Identification
After categorizing and comparing others, people will adopt the
identity of the group they belong to. In this stage, people will act any possible
ways in order to ease others in perceiving themselves – to which group they
belong to, exactly. Tajfel and Turner gave certain example about this case,
they said: “When members of two national or ethnic categories interact on the
basis of their reciprocal beliefs about their respective categories and of the
general relation between them, this is clearly intergroup behavior in the
everyday sense of the term” (1979: 40)
In other words, they implied whether people outside certain group no
need to follow the interactant’s ways of socialization. It is because each group
has its own characteristics of interaction. Therefore, other people are able to
identify another’s social identity from the interaction they have. Hence, social
identification can be achieved through interaction and social categorization by
understanding each group characteristics, firstly.
2.4

The Theoretical Framework of Interpretation
Interpretation is dealing with human experience to then understand the
human nature of that experience (Tan at.all, 2009:2). In literature, we shall
learn about interpretation in term of hermeneutics. According to Gashemi
et.all, 2011:1623) interpretation in term of hermeneutics is connected with
education in which it teaches the interpreter to understand speech or written
works.

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Dorrairaj

(2000:43)

re-explained

Ricoeur’s

definition

about

interpretation in hermeneutics that it is the theory of operation of
understanding text. Further, hermeneutics turns out to be phenomenology
hermeneutics in which its interpretation considers the role of context and
experiences. However, Glasersfield (1983:2) explained the concept of
interpretation that we shall pay attention to four elements of interpretation,
they are: an active subject, an object, a specific activity and the activity’s
result. In addition, Moran (1994:160) implied that interpretation is related to
the interpreter’s attribution of beliefs and the facts.
Furthermore, Recoeur (1976:12) divided two kinds of interpretation,
including: utterer’s meaning and utterance meaning. Each kind has three
elements to interpret, they are: the self-reference, locutionary and
illocutionary acts, and the interlocutionary act. Also, he implied whether
interpretation has to consider sense and reference in meaning (pg.19).
According to him, interpretation through sense is the objective side of
meaning. Meanwhile, interpretation through reference is the subjective side
of meaning. Thus, sense and reference take important role in interpretation.
Simply, the objective side and the subjective side is taken from two different
ways, they are: “what” and “about”. The question “what” refers to sense
while the question for “about what” refers to reference. Therefore, it is
important to consider that language is formed due to the speaker’s
experience. Hence, in analyzing text, the interpreter should understand the
situation of the discourse which is then fused with interpreter’s experience.

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Additionally, Gashemi et.all (2011:1624) drew a diagram to simply
describe about Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation, as below picture.

Figure 2.1 Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation
2.5

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
This novel tells about an Indian family who lives in America. In
August 1968, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli welcome the born of their new
baby. He names his son Gogol. He gives that name because he was inspired
by a Russian novelist, Gogol. In 1961, Gogol, the Russian novelist, had ever
saved Ashoke’s life when he was injured due to a train crash in India. Few
years after Gogol’s born, Ashoke and Ashima bore a new baby, Sonali.
Growing up to be teenage, Gogol relalizes that his name was quite strange. In
fact, he does not like that name at all. Also, he dislikes his parent’s custom,

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the Bengali, so that he prefer to enjoy America popular culture. Attending to
collage, Yale, he officially change his name to b